First Day
by Georgy-Girl
Summary: One-shot fluff about Zoe's first day back after maternity leave.


Zoe took a deep breath as she exited resus. Resting her back against the cool wall by the side of the door, she shut her eyes and breathed out slowly.

"Are you okay?" Robyn asked softly as she walked out of resus behind her.

"Fine." Zoe kept her eyes tightly shut.

"…I just thought, with this being your first case back after-"

"I'm fine!" Zoe snapped, interrupting the nurse, before she straightened herself, righted her stethoscope and stormed towards her office.

* * *

Rita walked out the front of the hospital a short time later looking for the doctor and gave a sigh when she saw her looking with envy at a group of smokers.

"Zoe, I heard about what happened in resus. Are you okay?"

"I'd be a lot better if people stopped asking me that! Do you all think I'm a mess or something? That suddenly I won't be able to cope with the job I've been doing for years?!"

"No! I just thought-"

"Well don't think. I'm fine. Don't you have work to do?" Zoe snapped at her friend.

Rita held up her hands in surrender and walked back into the building.

* * *

An hour later Zoe was sat staring down at her paperwork but not really seeing it when there was a knock on her office door.

"Come in."

She heard the door open and close, but she didn't look up, trying to concentrate on the form she was attempting to fill out.

Max waited in silence, but when he realised Zoe wasn't going to offer anything, he finally cleared his throat. "So, I heard what happened in resus and I thought you could do with a visitor."

Zoe looked up with a frown, about to give him the same speech she'd already given most of her colleagues, but her frown cleared when she saw the bundle in his arms.

"Have you kidnapped our child from the crèche?"

"Well I prefer to say I liberated her." Max took a few steps forward and placed the baby into her mother's arms.

"How has she been?"

"Fine, they said. She's been feeding well and is apparently in love with music time."

Zoe smiled and stroked her daughter's cheek. The baby's eyelids fluttered and then slowly opened, taking a moment to focus on her mother. After a few seconds, she gave Zoe a wide, gummy smile that made Zoe grin down at her. "Hello, you."

Max leant on the edge of the desk for a few minutes watching them with a smile before he finally offered, "You did everything you could, Zo."

Zoe looked down at her baby who was the same age as the child who'd just died in resus. Beth was gripping her hand tightly and looked up at Zoe with such trusting eyes that Zoe found the tears she'd been supressing began to surface. "I want to go home."

Max reached out a hand to brush away the few tears with his thumb. "You've only got a couple of hours left. You will be fine."

"But what if she get's sick, or there's some issue at the crèche, or-"

"Zoe, you did everything you could. That baby was gone before he arrived. No matter what anyone did, he wouldn't have survived."

"But-" Zoe began again.

Max moved to squat in front of her chair so that his eyes were in line with her gaze. "It's your first day back after months off, it's bound to be hard, and a baby was probably the worst possible patient for you to get straight off, but you did everything you could. Now you need to go back out there and finish your shift, even if you only treat the drunk in cubicle 3- who by the way I suspect has lice and not the head sort."

Zoe gave a slight smile at this and looked down at Beth, whose eyelids were growing heavy again.

"I'll take the next couple of hours off and make sure she's ok." Max finally offered when it didn't seem like Zoe would move.

"…Okay." She finally whispered.

Max stood up and lifted the baby from her, and Beth gave a sleepy giggle when she saw Max's face. "Alright, I'm not that funny looking, Munchkin. What do you say to spending three hours listening to your Daddy singing?"

Beth got a concentrated look on her face, and after a moment Max looked up at Zoe with surprise. "I think she just pooped!"

"We share the same taste in singing voice's then." Zoe smiled at Max and dropped a kiss to Beth's forehead, giving her warm round baby tummy one last rub before she went back to work. She could do this.

* * *

Max spoke to his boss and then picked things up from the crèche before returning to sit in Zoe's office. "So, what do you want to do then?"

Beth just gave a wide yawn.

"Mmm, sleep. Good idea." Max placed her gently in her stroller, but as soon as his hands left her she began to cry. After a pause, he picked her up again and she stopped, snuggling into him before she seemed to fall asleep again, but as he put her back in the stroller, she cried once more.

"One of those days, hey? Come on then, but only because you're cute." Max picked up his headphones and phone from Zoe's desk before lying down on the couch, resting Beth on his chest. Slipping his headphones on, he rested back against the cushions, one hand behind his head and one hand on his daughters back as she yawned and snuggled into him again.

* * *

It was an hour before Zoe returned to the office. She'd intended to push open the door and tell Max she was going home, but she hesitated when she heard a laugh from inside and instead looked in the window.

Beth was lying on a thick blanket on the floor and was watching Max with concentration. When he strummed his guitar and began to sing, she would start to giggle, and Max would continue for as long as he could before laughter overtook him. When he stopped playing, Beth would immediately stop laughing, and this made Max laugh even harder.

"Sweet."

Zoe looked around at the person who had spoken to her and found Connie looking into the office. "Yeah, it is. Was it difficult to come back to work after having Grace?"

"…I suppose it must have been. I don't really remember." She dismissed.

"…It's just I'm really struggling today, and I thought-"

"Oh, nonsense. It was just the death of that child this morning that threw you. You'll be right as rain tomorrow. Have you completed that form for the coroner yet?"

"Ah, no. Was just about to do it."

"Make sure it's on my desk before you leave, please."

Zoe sighed as she watched her colleague leave, and then focused on her office again, pushing open the door as Max was just picking Beth up.

"I think she's hungry. Do you want me to heat up a bottle, or do you want to feed her?"

"I'll do it." Zoe held out her arms. Though she'd started back at work, Zoe was determine to keep breastfeeding and had still been expressing every so often and storing it in the staff fridge, much to Dylan's annoyance when Max pretended to put some in his coffee.

Max handed Beth to her and then reached into the pram to get a light blanket to cover them. "In case one of the bosses comes in. While you do that, I'll go and get you something to eat, because I know you haven't eaten, and once you've finished I'll help you fill out that form you're avoiding."

"How do you know there's a form I'm avoiding?" Zoe asked as she fiddled with the buttons on her top one handed.

"I know everything. I'll be back in a minute."

Zoe watched him go and then looked down at Beth as she latched on to the nipple while gazing up at her mother. "What would we do without your Daddy?"

* * *

Zoe had been planning on taking 6 months maternity leave minimum, and hadn't worked for her last 2 months of pregnancy. She loved being at home all the time. Beth was a quiet baby most of the time, and despite her misgivings about housewives, Zoe found she loved the sense of achievement she got when she made Max something for dinner that he really enjoyed. But just as Beth was about to turn 4 months old, Zoe had got a call asking if she'd come back to work. The emergency unit closest to them had been shut down, and suddenly there was a huge influx in patients. Both Max and Zoe were unsure, Max because he liked how relaxed Zoe now was and Zoe because she wasn't sure she wanted to leave her tranquil home life and baby. In the end, she'd agreed to working 3 days a week and helping Connie with admin one day a week so she could have Beth in the office with her.

Zoe had surprised herself and Max that morning when she'd burst into tears at a red light.

"What's the matter?!"

"I'm going to get stressed again, and there's going to be so much to do, and-"

"And this time, you're going to let me in and I'm going to help you, and you're going to say no to things that will be too much."

That had lasted 10 minutes into the shift. When a woman had rushed in with a limp baby in her arms, Zoe didn't trust anyone else to treat him- She had to do it herself.

* * *

Zoe was relieved when handover began on her first day back. Just a few more minutes and she could go home. Trying to focus on what Connie was saying so that she could add in anything important, Zoe was momentarily distracted by Max appearing and sitting Beth on the desk.

Max rested Beth against his chest and put a hand to her middle to hold her steady. She sucked on her dummy and looked around, wide eyed at everyone, and it wasn't long before Connie watched with dismay as people began to stop listening to her and went to see Beth.

"Can I hold her? She's so cute!" Rita reached out and brushed the dark hair from Beth's face.

"If you dare, but it's poop time." Max supplied.

"I think I'll risk it." Rita pulled the baby into her arms and smiled down at her. "Hello, beautiful. Don't you look like your mummy?"

Beth glanced up at the woman who held her, and then her eyes began to scan again. When they fell on Zoe, she began opening and closing her hands, reaching out to her.

"I think someone wants their mummy. Here you are." Rita handed the baby gently to Zoe. "She's perfect."

"Isn't she." Zoe smiled, gazing down at her daughter.

"Right, well, if everyone has finished greeting the baby, can we please get back to handover?" Connie asked, irritated.

Zoe gave her colleague an apologetic smile and lifted Beth to hold her against her shoulder as Connie finished talking.

* * *

"Home time! I told you that you'd make it." Max grinned at Zoe as he followed her from the ED with the pram and bags.

"Only just. And I have to come in again tomorrow."

"Ah, but before tomorrow, there's dinner, there's bed time, there's a massage, and there's a chocolate waiting at home."

"…Proper chocolate?"

"Proper chocolate."

As they reached the car, Zoe turned to Max and pulled him down for a kiss. "What would I do without you."

"Well for starters you wouldn't have the cutest baby in the world, or-"

"It was a rhetorical question!" Zoe cut Max off and then unstrapped Beth so she could place her in her car seat.

Max placed the nappy bag in the boot and then glanced around at Zoe's bum still poking out of the door. "By the way, I don't mind you stealing my hoodie, but perhaps you should get your own so I don't always have to freeze to death."

Zoe smiled and shut the door gently. "I had to take it. I had an...issue." She unzipped the hoodie slightly to show Max where her breast milk had leaked onto her dress.

"Phwoar! What a sexy woman!"

As Max pressed her against the car and she pushing him away with a laugh, Connie passed them by and paused. After a sigh, she moved on, thinking about her own child.


End file.
